letterstoleland

Easter

April 1, 2024

Dear Leland and Everett,

Yesterday was Easter. We had a wonderful day together. The two of you woke up early to find Easter baskets ready for you. Your mom organized and Easter egg treasure hunt, the treasure being she gifted you each some Legos. You worked on your Legos until it was time to go to church. You and your mom joined me for Sunday worship service for the first time. After church, we feasted on dim sum, perhaps our favorite brunch meal (and one we haven’t had in awhile thanks to my dietary restriction, which I loosened for the special occasion). Back at home, you guys enjoyed some boba, finished your Legos, played outside, and watched some basketball. It was just a wonderful day all the way around, but there were a few highlights I wanted to highlight and savor.

I always enjoy watching your mom fuss over you two, and I enjoyed watching her pick out the items for and prep your Easter baskets. As is usually the case, you both really, really enjoyed what she got (and did) for you.

You wore the new (collared) shirts your Gran got you for Easter. You both (and Leland especially) resist dressing up, so it was great to see you in nicer clothes. You both just looked great.

You approached the worship service with openness and curiosity. Worship services are never going to be a kid’s favorite activity (too much talking!), but you both behaved wonderfully. I really appreciated your behavior, and how it enabled Mom and Dad to take in what turned out to be a wonderful worship service.

At lunch Leland asked, “Dad, why do you believe in God?”. I responded, “Well, I find that God talks to me in my meditations”. I proceeded to explain the visions I get in my meditations, how those visions are interactive (I’m a participant, but some apparently separate entity appears to participate as well), and how some of those visions have been predictive. Leland you responded by saying “I don’t think God is real”, which didn’t totally surprise me. You are a very logical, linear thinker, so it makes sense to me that you see no obvious need for God. And so I simply responded by saying that 1) we can’t prove God is real; 2) everyone has to decide for themselves; but that 3) in my experience, when we talk to God, God talks back. This was easily my favorite part of the day, I was so grateful you asked such a sincere and thoughtful and important question, and then listened patiently and earnestly to my response. I’ll be curious to see how (or if) you remember that conversation in adulthood.

[This morning on the way to school Leland even followed up on the conversation, asking me about the predictive nature of my meditations. I explained that they mostly predict things that eventually happen to me. You remembered me saying that I don’t always understand what my visions mean, and asked how long it takes me to understand. I responded that it’s usually within a few days, but can often take weeks and sometimes takes months. I am still learning from my earliest visions, which are now approaching two-and-a-half years old. Again, I had great fun with this discussion, and was thrilled you took such an interest.]

After lunch what struck me most was how agreeably you played together. You didn’t fight all afternoon, and rarely sought adult interaction. At one point I noticed Leland’s energy level rising (you were getting loud) and so I asked if you wanted to go outside and play. When I came out to join you, Leland said “You can go back inside, Dad. We found a game to play”. This NEVER happens; you guys always want me to come out and join you. This time I just went back inside to read a book until, about half an hour later, you came back and said cheerfully “Okay Dad, we’re ready for you”.

Few days go by as ease-fully as yesterday did. For me, some of this was undoubtedly the relief of Easter and what it marks in terms of the end of Jesus’ suffering and replacing the grieving of his death with the promise of resurrection. I’ll forever be grateful that your mom helped me honor the occasion with significance and intention. And I’ll forever remember how the two of you helped me appreciate how much joy you bring me, and how much I enjoy seeing the two of you enjoying yourselves.

Happy Easter. I love you.

Χριστός ἀνέστη!

Ἀληθῶς ἀνέστη!

Love,

Dad

Learning presence through Holy Week

March 25, 2024

Dear Leland and Everett,

Yesterday was Palm Sunday. On Palm Sunday Christians celebrate Jesus’ procession into Jerusalem, where the Gospels tell us Jesus rode into town on a donkey while people lined the street with their cloaks and palm branches and cheered Jesus’ arrival. Christians today treat Palm Sunday as a time for celebration, and are invited to celebrate Jesus’ procession as if alongside those who attended.

I struggled with the apparent juxtaposition between the celebration of Palm Sunday and challenges we know are to come just within a few days in Holy Week: Jesus agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, the various stages of trial, and the horror of the crucifixion. After worship I spoke with a friend struggling with the same idea. He pointed out that for most of those present for Jesus’ procession, they would have had no awareness of Jesus’ difficulties to come; therefore, they would be free to enjoy the procession in peaceful oblivion. He contrasted this with his own awareness, and therefore struggle, to partake in and celebrate the day. I sensed that he was highlighting some underlying truth about the stages of spiritual development. Early in our spiritual development, naiveté enables a kind of blissful ignorance. Later, we become aware how faith isn’t enough to prevent struggle, and our belief in some ways becomes a burden, as we become increasingly aware of our limitations and corresponding challenges. My sense is that our invitation is to continue the journey, and find a place where we can be aware of the struggles to come, but still somehow remain present to and in celebration of the gifts available to us now.

To give a tangible example, permit a story. Several months ago, as I was coming into awareness of how my dad’s struggles with alcohol had impacted me into adulthood, I realized that I was still clinging to the idea of my family as a little boy (before my dad started drinking to excess). I had a charmed upbringing, and my early years were particularly loving and joyous. During a meditation I discovered I was still holding onto an idea of my family when we were all that age, as if wishing we could all go back to that time and be that family again. Of course, we cannot go back, and so holding onto that idea was more harmful than helpful. And so I wept bitterly as I sat lovingly watching that era of my family, with us sitting around a table together. I sat appreciating our time together, and how much joy and love that time brought me. Once ready I announced my intention to let go, to let that family go so that each of us could grow up and grow into the people we were meant to become. And so I watched as we aged, as my sister and I grew larger. My sister and I physically moved, as if floating, away from my parents.

What happened next surprised me. I turned away from my sister and parents and saw the two of you and your mom sitting with me at a table, just like the prior image with my parents and sister. This was present day, and I was struck for the first time how the two of you were roughly the age I was before my dad started drinking. I sat watching us sit together, appreciating our family and how much love and joy the two of you bring me.

And then it hit me: the two of you will grow up. You will depend on me less as you mature. Eventually you will move out and start your own lives and families, and we will slowly grow apart. I hated this idea more than I can possibly express. And yet, the inevitability of the path was inescapable; there was no sense in my fighting what would happen anyway. And so I resolved to replicate what I had just done with my childhood family: appreciate our time together and let you go so that you might grow into the people you are meant to become. This was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.

I sat in gratitude for what seemed like an eternity. I sat appreciating how much joy and love the two of you have brought into my life. I appreciated how much I love being your dad. I appreciated how much I love you, right now, at this age, and how I can’t possibly imagine enjoying another age more than this one (because you are old enough to be playful and fun and learn rapidly, but still young enough that you really enjoy playing with your dad). Finally I resolved to say goodbye and let go. What happened next was a tension I struggle to describe. I felt as if every cell in my body was holding onto the idea of keeping the two of you young, and that letting go meant having the idea ripped out of each cell individually. Every fiber of my being felt physical agony in resistance to my call to let go. I writhed for several minutes, feeling the agony peak in different parts of my body in different times. I literally screamed into a pillow to help me facilitate the process of letting go.

Eventually, I felt ready to let go, and I watched the two of you float away in different directions. After a moment we were sitting far apart, as if 3 disparate celestial bodies (Leland, Everett, and your mom and I remaining together), beings of light surrounded by the darkness of deep space. I looked out and saw my sister and parents, further away. In that moment I sensed I had learned something about love and attachment.

Since that time, I think it fair to say I’ve stopped subconsciously fighting the idea of the two of you growing up. Not that I could tell you how that idea was affecting me before, but I am sure that it was (or was about to if it wasn’t already). What I have noticed instead is more presence and flow when I am with you both. Rather than resent the idea of the two of you growing up, I feel tremendous gratitude for the time I still get to spend with you. I notice myself more equipped to let go of whatever distractions and be with you guys. Don’t get me wrong, I still get distracted, but far less than I used to.

My learning from that experience: when we find ourselves resistant to the idea of something to come, we have an opportunity to sit in gratitude and appreciate the joy and love that thing brings us. And then we let can go of our attachment to the thing. In the place of attachment, we create space to sit in appreciation for our remaining time with that thing instead of resistance to the idea of losing it. As a result, we are able to enjoy and maximize our remaining time together, rather than losing our remaining time together in a misguided attempt to protect ourselves from getting hurt.

Coming back to today: today I meditated with this tension between what negative things are to come (the crucifixion, you two growing up) and the opportunity to celebrate today (the procession into Jerusalem, my time with you now). When I attempted to allow or even embrace that tension, I felt an energy surge as if I were being plugged in a source of electricity somehow. I could make the sensation going away by resisting the tension, but at the cost of feeling an underlying pressure that felt artificial and unnecessary. My takeaway: when negative situations arise, the underlying emotions or physical sensations exist whether we resist or not. We get to choose whether we resist and feel the pressure of resistance and later experience the cost of getting those emotions stuck in our bodies and our memories; or we can allow, and let the energy flow through us in ways that might create discomfort, but keep us in harmony with ourselves, with the world around us, and with God.

I’ll let the two of you decide what these lessons mean for you, if anything. For me, I’m still very much working through something (or things). I sense learnings coming this Holy Week, and sense that today was the start. Today felt like a visceral teaching of what it means to step into full awareness and aliveness. Being fully alive isn’t always easy, but over the long term almost certainly beats the alternative of living a life artificially stunted by fear.

I love you both. Happy Holy Week.

Love,

Dad

Experiencing lingering anxiety

March 19, 2024

Dear Leland and Everett,

Today I need to wrestle with a couple ideas floating around in my head. My hope is that the process of writing will help me break through and understand something. I’m not entirely sure what, but here goes.

I’ve been experiencing a general sense of anxiety recently. Nothing too painful or difficult, but a general baseline of anxiety nonetheless. Over the course of the last year I’ve generally learned how to handle my emotional ebbs and flows. I’m optimistic that this phase will pass, ideally with some new learning. But I’ll admit I’ve found these last few weeks to be challenging.

Is it seasonal?

One idea that I’ve been wrestling with recently: life is more seasonal and cyclical than we recognize. Western society in particular has adopted an idea that time is linear: we work toward something, life progresses. In this view, time builds upon itself via human effort, and things generally improve over time (albeit chaotically).

What I am coming to appreciate is the cyclical nature of time. We do experience seasons, and these seasons do carry meaning in them. Winter is a time of death while spring is a time for birth and renewal, for example.

The seasonal nature of time hit me particularly this winter. I found myself grieving this winter, feeling sadness and a sense of loss as the days got shorter and darker. I remembered how Christmas replaced a pagan holiday meant to celebrate the days finally getting longer; for millennia people have experienced an onset of sadness and grief with winter, to the degree that we set a holiday specifically meant to give folks hope and a reminder that the days would get longer, brighter, and warmer, and that we would experience life and joy and abundance again.

And then I noticed, with some remove for the first time, how Americans work ourselves into a frenzy during the Christmas holidays. Work invariably increases as folks prepare to take time off, school effort increases as we finish a semester not only with exams, but also with performances and other forms of celebration. And of course, for the Christmas holiday itself we either plan travel or hosting responsibilities. We decorate. We plan and execute a large feast. We buy and wrap presents. Watching it all this year, I couldn’t help but wonder: to what degree do we work ourselves into this frenzy to avoid feeling sadness and grief during this season of darkness and death? Don’t get me wrong: celebrating holidays together are wonderful. Giving presents, feasting together, decorating, singing, and performing are all critical rituals to the human experience. But I sense Americans so obsess over Christmas precisely because we have a shared cultural aversion to sadness, grief, and death.

Spring, of course, is a time for rebirth and renewal. What I’m noticing is that the transition from winter (darkness, sadness, grief, death) to spring (birth, renewal) is not instantaneous. I sense at least some of my anxiety is wanting to accelerate the end of winter and firmly reach spring.

Is it spiritual?

I also wonder how my involvement in my spiritual direction group (which started in September, and runs to May) impacts my experience of the seasons, and this season in particular. We’re less than two weeks from Easter. Easter itself is a time for celebration, as we honor Jesus’ resurrection and celebrate the new relationship with God the resurrection brings us. But Lent, the season that immediately proceeds Easter, is solemn. For me, one inescapable conclusion is that, in order to get to Easter (the resurrection), we must first experience all of the elements that preceded the resurrection: the trial, hanging on the cross, and even the sense of dread Jesus felt at his impending betrayal and death. We are reminded of humanity’s worst impulses, how we could mock and betray and torment and kill a source of almost unimaginable light and love and joy and healing. I’d never previously observed Lent with purpose or intention. This year I read scripture and pray, which I find brings a sense of unease, a desire for Lent to end quickly that I might experience the renewal of Easter.

Or is it relational?

For most of the past year, I’ve carried a visual image that I was going into a cave to heal myself, knowing that I would eventually come back out of the cave to reengage with the world. That image has correlates in some of my earliest visions. In the first I wrote about, after encountering Jesus I started on my path. I stepped into darkness and faced a demon representing my fear. Then I faced multiple demons representing others gripped in fear. Even my very first vision resembles a healing descent into the subconscious. What I didn’t capture in my notes from that day was a distinct sense that, on the return journey, I would heal relationships around me. This relationship healing loosely resembled healing concentric circles, with me at the center, your mom as the first ring, my parents as the second ring, proceeding to other loved ones (friends and family), then acquaintances, strangers, and even including ‘enemies’ (those folks with whom I carried a negative charge). I even recall continuing on to facilitate the healing of relationships between groups that didn’t include me.

This gets me to the part where I’m feeling a bit stuck at the moment. Yesterday I wrote about fear, and how fear keeps us turned away from our light, our path, our purpose, our wholeness. These days I encounter examples of people stuck in fear seemingly everywhere. Your mom, folks at church, friends I visit, on the news, in the podcasts I hear…I sense fear everywhere. We probably are more fearful than we used to be, but the bigger difference is I am now more aware when others are stuck in fear. Of course, no one stuck in fear wants to be told that they are fighting shadows; we would experience such admonition as infantilizing. So I am struggling with what to do with my newfound awareness of all the fear I encounter.

My sense is that this period of preparing for the resurrection, of following Jesus to the cross, gives me some clues for where to look. Sensing Jesus’ dread in the Garden of Gethsemane, empathizing with his plight at trial and on the cross, I find my capacity for empathy increasing. My ability to sit with unpleasant emotions and physical sensations remains limited, but improves slowly through my meditations. My sense is that I am called to engage those stuck in fear with empathy and compassion. To the degree I sense openness, I sense a calling to share my light, that others might discover their own internal connection to God. To the degree I sense others are committed to their fear and remain closed, I sense a calling to move on and proceed on my path. I feel when other are in pain, and find the experience deeply unpleasant to a degree that I feel compelled to try to help. Thus, I am deeply uncomfortable with the idea of moving on from someone stuck in fear. I must remember that God is available to everyone, always. Put differently: others will find the light when they are ready. And what if they are never ready? That is not for me to know. I wish it were, but it is not. Reluctantly, I must humbly stick to my path, and trust that others will find theirs at the appropriate time.

Forgive me if this has been a rambling note. Indeed, the act of writing has in fact helped me piece a few ideas together, and have given me a clearer sense of my path forward. I appreciate the two of you serving as my audience in these letters, and hope you find them useful in due time.

I love you both.

Love,

Dad

Fear

March 18, 2024

Dear Leland and Everett,

I mentioned previously that in one of my first visions, I found myself moving away from fear. That visual stays with me, and I’d like to explore some further and more recent learnings I’ve had on the topic.

Fear encourages us to move away from something we don’t want, instead of toward something we do.

Fear relies on shadows. I am not sure I can describe the moment of becoming gripped by fear, that moment when we turn away from those things that we do want and begin to avoid the things we don’t want. The act of becoming gripped by fear is, for me anyway, still so subtle as to be unnoticeable.

What I do know is that the act of turning away from fear also turns us away from our source of light, strength, and life (or, said differently, our connection to God). Our fears sit between us and our light, and use the light to project shadows on the walls in front of us. We confuse those shadows with reality, and use our fight-or-flight tools to attempt to attack or run away from those shadows.

Over time we get so attuned to facing the shadows on the wall that we convince ourselves that the shadows are real, and that if we could just get the shadows to stop dancing on the walls in such menacing fashion, we could finally feel peace. Of course, the truth is that the shadows are just an illusion hiding the real pain, trauma, or fear.

The best method I have found for identifying when I am stuck in fear, confusing shadows for reality, is when I become convinced that my problems were created by someone else, and particularly when I start to obsess with how to make someone else change behavior. To be clear, I am not suggesting that others’ behavior never requires correction; setting boundaries is an important life skill. But setting boundaries is something I can control. Obsessing about how I am going to control or convince someone to do what I want, and then how I am going to police and enforce that behavior once I’ve established my imaginary control…is not a productive use of my time nor energy. I can control me, I do not and cannot control others. Confusing that simple fact is an almost surefire sign that I have become gripped by fear, turning away from the truth and my light, living my life avoiding or fighting shadows.

My Grandad told an entertaining story where he experienced terrible pain on one side of his mouth; he went to the dentist to discover that he, in fact, had a cavity. The twist was that the cavity was on the opposite side of his mouth from where he experienced the pain. Once the dentist addressed the cavity, the pain went away, effectively confirming that the cavity was the source of his pain, even if he experienced the pain in a completely different place from its source.

I tell this story partly because I’ve had similar experiences (both in my mouth and in other physical aliments), but mostly because identifying the root of our fears strikes me as metaphorically similar. The roots of our fears are often only loosely connected to the shadows that we so struggle to suppress, in much the same way that the root of my Grandad’s pain was observably connected to its source only insofar as both the cavity and the pain occurred in his mouth. For example, I identified virtually all of my personas when exploring my fears. None of them emerged from neatly parallel shadows, but all of them emerged from an exploration of the source of the shadows I experienced.

A secret to healing and growth, then, is to learn when to stop fighting shadows and turn around and face our fears. Our programming tells us not to do this, and so facing our fears is irrationally difficult. But facing our fears allows us to identify the roots of our fears, and thus address them in ways that solve the problems. Once we address the fear creating the shadows, we stop seeing the shadows; thus like my Grandad, we confirm that we’ve identified the root of a problem when the experience of pain and suffering go away.

So practically speaking, how does one turn around and face the source generating the shadows in our lives? The first step is to identify when we are fighting (or running away from) shadows. As I mentioned earlier, the best way to know you are fighting the shadows is when you are convinced that the solution resides with someone else, especially when you find yourself obsessed with establishing your ability to control or influence someone else. When you observe yourself attempting to control another instead of yourself, become aware. Become open to the possibility you are fighting a shadow and avoiding the underlying problem. From there, begin to ask yourself “what is really going on here?” If you are anything like me, you will find that you go through layers and iterations of wanting to control someone outside your control. This might represent progress, but means you have yet to identify the root of the problem. Keep looking, asking yourself, “okay, but why does this bother me so much?”.

Meditation helps. Exploring the physical sensations in bodies can lead us to the source of our fears. So can a higher power; indeed, just asking God’s help can dramatically accelerate understanding. Our rational brains cannot identify our fears, because our fears are not rational. Indeed, our rational brains compound the problem, in their ability to create more and more rational plans (and arguments for why!) to make the shadows go away. It is hard to shelve the crutch that has become our rational brains, but surrendering to our bodies, our spiritual beings, or God is precisely the act of turning around to face the underlying fear creating the shadow. Identifying the fear is usually not fun; we’ve been holding onto that fear for a reason. But once we see the fear for what it is (and it is usually far smaller in reality than the shadows we allow it to project), we are usually able to remain facing it until we learn from it and heal. And healing is far more rewarding than remaining stuck in our rumination, building structures in our mind out of shadows that keep us trapped and sap us of our vitality.

In my experience, the alternative to healing is not fun. We have all developed tricks for getting away from the recurring shadows in our lives. But those shadows recur precisely because our souls long to heal; our fears project the same shadows over and over again because some part of us wants to heal, wants to accept the opportunity to turn around and face our fears. Otherwise we spend more and more of our lives fighting shadows, wasting our precious energy and time on earth trapped in a cage fight of our own making. I very much wish the two of you an adulthood filled with growth rather than constantly shrinking in the face of fears. Both options are challenging; one is rewarding and fulfilling, while the other constricts and slowly suffocates. I implore you: choose growth.

I love you both.

Love,

Dad

Taiwan / Japan 2024

March 4, 2024

Dear Leland and Everett,

Today is our first day back at school and work after our two-week trip to Taiwan and Japan. I’m hopeful this is a trip you will both remember, though I anticipate Leland (because he’s 8) will remember it better than Everett (who’s 6). Regardless, it was a wonderful trip, and I’m thrilled we were able to pull it together.

The primary purpose of the trip was for your mom to visit her 94-year old grandfather. We last saw him pre-covid, and your mom rightly wonders how many more chances we will get to see him. Even better, we were able to time the trip to overlap with Ah Ma’s visit, and we were even able to convince your uncle to join us…so long as we agreed to visit Japan in addition to Taiwan. In sum, we were able to travel with your mom’s whole family, which makes this the first time we have all travelled to Taiwan together (the family visited Taiwan together in 2016, but Everett wasn’t born yet, and Leland won’t remember that trip because you were only 1).

Our first few days were primarily centered around family in Chiayi, where your grandfather and Ah Ma’s siblings live. From there, we made an overnight excursion to Alishan, a beautiful mountainous area (around 7,000 feet in elevation) with glorious forests, trees, and hiking. We finished the Taiwan portion of the trip with several days in Taipei, where we visited with friends (and you both made new friends), went to the top of Taipei 101, went to see the lights and decorations for the Lantern Festival, and made a day trip to Shifen (where we lit a lantern and set it off into the valley) and Jiufen, where we poked around and ate fabulous foods.

We said goodbye to Ah Ma (for a few days anyway, as she’s now back home with us) in Taipei, and flew to Tokyo with your uncle. We stayed in Ginza, which turned out to be wonderfully centrally located. We ate sushi, tonkatsu, ramen, and udon (all your favorites). We went up to the observatory at the Sky Tree, visited a wonderfully quirky museum called TeamLab Planets (a sort of interactive art exhibit meant to engage the senses), played arcade games, and poked around the neighborhoods of Shinjuku and Shibuya.

You both loved the trip. The beginning was a bit challenging: we were all jet lagged, and visiting elderly family members is not your (nor most kids’) idea of fun). But you enjoyed hiking around Alishan (though none of us enjoyed the bus ride home through the mountains and hair pin turns). You loved making new friends in Taipei. And you both loved Japan. Our room in Tokyo was too small to fit all four of us, so Leland stayed with Uncle; you thought you were big stuff. And of course Everett enjoyed having Mom and Dad to himself. Japan especially suits Leland: the cleanliness, the attention to detail (in seemingly everything), and the precision and predictability I think all resonate with Leland in particular. But Everett enjoyed Japan almost as much; by the end of the trip, Everett said “Next year when we come to Japan…”; your mom and I both started when he said that, because (at least as of now) we have no plans to come back next year, and haven’t discussed coming back. Despite all the fun, Leland was ready to come home (as were Mom and Dad); Everett claimed not be ready, and intimated he had forgotten our home and was starting to think of Japan and Taiwan as home (which I can’t believe to be true, my interpretation is that you were trying to impress upon us how much you enjoyed the trip and wanted to stay longer or do it again). Everett even said he wished we had missed our flight so that we could stay an extra day with Uncle (who came back a day after the rest of us).

My personal favorite experience: in Shibuya Leland found a ramen restaurant he waned to try (aside: three times Leland selected restaurants he really wanted to try as we walked past. Each time we honored the request, partly because no one had better plans and picking restaurants in Tokyo can be tricky to say the least. Each time the results were outstanding, and accounted for two of my three favorite meals in Tokyo, with this anecdote accounting for the third). Everett didn’t want ramen, so I agreed to walk around with Everett while Mom and Uncle joined Leland. After a few minutes of exploring, Everett exclaimed “sushi!” and pointed to a poster promoting a sushi restaurant nearby. So we went to find the restaurant, in the 12th floor of a mall. Everett confirmed he liked the restaurant, and picked what he wanted to eat, so we got a table. Inside, I noticed several other patrons were wearing suits; this appeared to be a restaurant catering to business folk. Nonetheless we were treated graciously and gracefully (as with seemingly all experiences in Japan). Everett loved his sushi (mostly tamago), as I did mine. I even splurged on a small bottle of sake (junmai ginjo – I decided to go for the good stuff; it’s relatively cheap in Japan vs imported here). Nothing particularly noteworthy happened during the meal, but I loved it and it remains one of the highlights of my trip; Everett and I haven’t had a lot of 1:1 time, so I cherished this outing.

As for my spiritual journey, that took a bit of a backseat during the trip. I meditated the first day…and then not again until today. Through the first week I felt…the word that keeps coming to me is “destabilized”. I felt distracted, like I was losing my connection to myself and the deeper truths I’ve been exploring. I did not enjoy that sensation.

Around the end of our time in Taiwan, the adults all noticed that you both were starting to misbehave. You started bickering, and were either running off of falling behind in crowded places. We adults started to get frustrated. And then I realized (remembered?) you guys were looking for attention. The adults were anxious (we were in a big city in a foreign country, after all), and were generally consulting phones or debating with each other on what to do or how to get there. You guys didn’t feel seen or noticed, and were acting out to get our attention. And so I set an intention to reset, and prioritize presence with the two of you. Of course, as we travelled to Tokyo (an even bigger city that’s even more challenging to navigate), I still at times got distracted or anxious, but less so. Generally I was able to keep my focus on the present (which, especially when traveling, often meant keeping my focus on the two of you), and when you guys started seeking attention I was able to quickly reset.

Overall my takeaways were that 1) I’m still a long way from being able to carry presence into all environments (I’m mostly confined to personal time, time at church or with my group, or sometimes when I interact with you or your mom); and 2) I’m still making a lot of progress. I was able to reset midway through the trip and maintain more presence through the end, and being able to maintain presence by myself or with you and your mom represents major progress. I have come a long way, but still have a long way to go.

One final anecdote: at the interactive museum in Tokyo, we found a room where we lay down on the floor and watched projections go across a screen overhead. You guys claimed to get bored, and started gently roughhousing with me. You weren’t so rough as to be searching for attention. Perhaps you were enjoying the exhibit, but needed to make it more entertaining. Or perhaps you just wanted some cuddle time with dad (I’m convinced roughhousing is how men show affection with each other). Regardless, I began to weep, overcome by the beauty of the moment. I was enjoying the visuals scrolling by overhead, but mostly I was enjoying your simultaneous affection. The thought occurred to me: “I don’t know how many more moments like this I have left”. We don’t roughhouse quite like that often (though we do roughhouse regularly, but it’s normally rougher and more involved; one can’t get lost savoring our typical roughhousing), and eventually you both will outgrow roughhousing with me. The visual stimulus really added to the experience. It was a beautiful moment that I genuinely cherished as it was happening.

I love you both, and I look forward to traveling with you (especially to foreign countries) again. In the meantime, I look forward to getting back into my meditations and writing letters to the two of you.

Love,

Dad

Spirituality revisited

February 13, 2024

Dear Leland and Everett,

I notice I’ve been writing a lot about God and scripture lately. I’ve written briefly about my spiritual beliefs before, but not with this regularity. I sense it might be worth updating a bit regarding where I am on my journey.

For one thing, we probably need to talk about God. My assumptions and/or explicit beliefs about God are pretty limited. I sense that God exists, though I also sense humans have no capacity to fully comprehend God. We can see reflections and manifestations, and can hear echos; but our brains just aren’t capable of imagining what God might look like or sound or be like. Partly I suspect we are limited by our ability to sense three dimensions; God may well exist in a space consisting of additional dimensions humans cannot perceive. I believe God is not bound by time, whereas humans perceive a world in which time is fleeting and moves only in one direction.

Partly due to the limits of our perception, partly to our limits of imagination, but perhaps mostly due to our deep desire to feel a sense of control, we have a tendency to put God in a box. By this I mean we tend to create mental models of God which we can in fact understand, and in the process put imaginary constraints on God’s capabilities. Spiritual exploration means, among other things, coming to terms with the incomprehensible nature of God and surrendering the illusion that we might logically know.

So why do I believe God exists? For lack of a better explanation, I sense God’s presence. Perhaps more accurately, I feel a connection to what Christians would describe as the Holy Spirit (and goes by other names in other religions): a field of energy flowing in and around and through us. And in a manner I can’t adequately describe, I sense the energy flowing around and through us connects to a larger source, which I call God. Put most simply, I sense God’s existence in my meditations. I have only the faintest understanding of God per se, but also sense that God invites me into relationship. This invitation into relationship includes surrendering the illusion that I have control over myself and the universe around me. For whatever reason, I find we must make space for God’s presence in our lives by surrendering the aspects of ourselves, typically born of fear or sadness, that block our ability to receive what God wants to communicate to and through us.

To the extent that I am willing to surrender my illusions of control, I open myself up to knowing things that I can’t fully explain, but know. A skeptic might argue that I delude myself in believing I can know things without being able to explain them (and how I came to know them). Perhaps they are right; part of surrender is holding a loose grip, resisting attachment even to our own ideas.

And what is the benefit or purpose of this relationship of surrender? I’ve only experienced glimpses, but my sense is that we experience otherwise unimaginable peace, harmony, connection, and flow. I sense this is the path toward healing and wholeness. Interestingly, peace/harmony/connection/flow sound fine to most people, but aren’t nearly sufficiently motivating to let go of our attachments (and especially our perceived grip on reality). And while healing and wholeness might sound more compelling, they are typically not compelling enough for our egos to let go of our illusion of control over our lives and our surroundings. I’ve seen mystics posit that most people don’t advance beyond a certain point in their spiritual growth without a major shock.

My experience was different. I felt life slowly closing in around me. I kept pursuing all the avenues I expected would lead to happiness, but kept experiencing dead-ends. I felt more and more constricted and hopeless. And then a little door appeared. I didn’t realize the significance of the door at the time. In fact, I ignored the door. I had mentioned to your mom that I wanted to hire a life coach; one day she informed me she met a life coach in a professional training she attended. I brushed off the coincidence, assuming I should do research to find the ‘right’ or ‘best’ coach for me. Weeks later, your mom introduced me to a podcast episode where the guest outlined the coaching practices they created; when I expressed my curiosity and enthusiasm, your mom pointed out the coach she met specialized in this format of coaching. Perhaps reluctantly, I recognized that finding the ‘best’ coach (which I didn’t even know how to do) on some imaginary future timeline probably mattered less than meeting a potentially interesting coach now.

That coach introduced me to body awareness and internal exploration. Eventually that exploration morphed into what I call visions (effectively visual, interactive meditations). These visions exposed me, for the first time, to sensing that I could ‘know’ things without being able to explain how or why I knew them. And so I’ve continued on this spiritual path, recognizing I didn’t want to go back to the constricted world I left behind, but increasingly aware that I was surrendering my ego’s illusion of control as the cost of pursuing this new path. This process has not been easy or ‘fun’; in fact it’s the hardest thing I have ever done. And yet I’ve been able to pursue the process with relative calm and equanimity.

I outlined the beliefs I’ve developed on this journey here, so won’t belabor them other than to say that they have not changed. I will merely add:

I believe we are called to be our own savior. We can stop looking for external sources (parents, jobs, companies, friends, spouses, therapists, consumerism) to bring our lives meaning and fulfillment; those are all ultimately dead ends. I’ve read my fair share of self-help books. They can be immensely useful, and the authors are typically well meaning and helpful; ultimately however, we do not find fulfillment following the paths laid out for us by others. Then again, don’t take my word for it. If you are finding meaning in your current journey, by all means, continue! Just be on the lookout for the dead ends.

Fortunately, we have all the tools we need to find our own connection to God; in the process we find and follow our own paths. We need the help of others, of course. But by forging our own relationship and setting our intention to know God, we build the capacity to know the help we need and when to accept help to remain on our path. Moreover, we develop the discernment to know the difference between accepting help overcoming obstacles on our path and getting pulled into following the paths meant for others. To be clear: our paths will at times intersect, and it will at times make sense to follow others. Again, with practice you will develop the ability to discern when you are temporarily following the path laid out by others, and when it becomes time to forge your own path.

I’m still not married to my path being explicitly Christian. Indeed, I have come to trust my own connection to and communication with God more than anything else. But what I have noticed, now that I have tuned into my own intuitive capabilities, is that one can pursue a mystic Christian path. Christianity offers us the tools needed to find our relationship with God. I don’t assume Christianity has exclusive access to such enlightenment; indeed I suspect all major religions offer a path. But Christianity has lost its way (and in this way I doubt Christianity is unique): we have come to mistake the rules of Christianity for the purpose of life itself. We misunderstand that the rules are merely guideposts meant to point us on the path to relationship with God, not the relationship in and of themselves.

Jesus regularly chided the Pharisees for their obsession with rules, and their lack of genuine relationship with God. I sense we live in similar times. Christians today obsess over the rules of Christianity, and have generally lost the ability to pursue a deepening relationship with God. The growing ranks of non-believers (a term I’ll use to loosely cluster atheists and agnostics) similarly obsess over the rules of society (be they laws or just norms and mores), and generally lack awareness the possibility of a direct connection with God exists.

In this way I am reminded of a couple of passages that struck me recently. The first is the parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15: 11-32), wherein the rule-abiding son protests the screwup brother being celebrated for returning home. The second is the story of a Pharisee host who objects to Jesus allowing a woman ‘sinner’ to wash his feet with her hair (Luke 7: 36-50). In both of these stories Jesus (in the parable of the Prodigal Son, via the father) chides the rule-follower. Reading these passages now, I realize Jesus points out how we take false comfort in rule-following. By following the rules, we keep ourselves in proximity to God, and confuse proximity with relationship. The father of the Prodigal Son reminds the brother that he maintained access to all the father’s gifts, with the implication being the brother has yet to fully partake. The brother remains close but keeps God at arm’s length, assuming that being close is good enough. The brother has yet to understand he needs to let God in, in order to accept the gifts God offers.

When Jesus says to the Pharisee “the person who is forgiven only a little loves only a little”, he’s pointing out that the obvious sinners in some way have it easier: their sins are obvious even to them. It is not so hard to identify and surrender obvious flaws to God, precisely because these sins are so obvious and limiting. The rule-follower has it harder: he or she maintains the illusion that they need not be forgiven because there is nothing to forgive. The rule-follower uses the following of rules as a shield to avoid confronting or surrendering their own weaknesses.

And so here we are: a society dominated by rule-followers, be they Christian or non-believers, who mistake the rules for the purpose. We (and I very much include myself here) hide the aspects of ourselves we don’t like or secretly believe to be unloveable behind a veneer of rule-following. We assume that following the rules will lead us to security, love, and abundance. And so we mimic the Pharisee and the brother of the Prodigal Son: in proximity to relationship with God, maintaining the illusion that we are on the path to wholeness, but in truth hopelessly lost.

The path out, I have learned, is a purposeful exploration of the areas of ourselves we hide. The parts of ourselves we don’t like, believe to be sinful, or assume to be unloveable. In my case (I assume like countless others) we become so successful at hiding these parts of ourselves that we genuinely forget they exist. But if we set the intention and dedicate the space, God will help us surface the parts of ourselves we’ve hidden. In the process we learn to surrender those parts, treat ourselves with compassion, and develop the capacity to love ourselves. And when we begin to love ourselves, we begin to find the capacity to truly love others and the world around us. The compassion we direct toward ourselves is the compassion we direct toward others, and vice versa. But before we can fully experience the compassion, we have to know ourselves. Only after we acknowledge and accept those hidden aspects of ourselves can we truly love ourselves; until then we only maintain the ability to love an idealized (e.g. false) version of ourselves. We intuitively know the idealized version is false, so we live out of alignment. The misalignment bring us the pain and suffering we experience, as we resist the parts of ourselves we don’t wish to see (primarily by loathing those traits in others).

So this is where I am, and the point from which I continue to explore. It’s possible I’ll discover I’ve become untethered to reality. It’s possible that this exploration too will be a dead-end. It’s certainly possible God doesn’t in fact exist, though we’ll never be able to prove one way or another. Regardless, my sense is that there is something timeliness in the exploration and pursuit of relationship with God, in finding and walking one’s path. It’s possible these are just useful tools for how to live life. I don’t think it’s coincidental that Alcoholics Anonymous, a famously effective organization at helping individuals overcome addiction to alcohol, encourage participants to identify the Higher Power they will they use to identify the aspects of themselves they wish to surrender to the Higher Power: it just works. [Indeed, I’m struck reading the 12 steps Alcoholics Anonymous follows, and how closely the steps align to my own healing journey.]

I’ll continue to update on my evolution, in part to show you how messy personal exploration can be (in current parlance, “how the sausage gets made”). We typically tell stories after the journey is complete, identifying the key moments (or what we perceive to be the key moments), and excluding those apparently unnecessary twists and turns and dead-ends. In the process, we often leave out key details because we don’t recognize their significance. By documenting my steps as I go, I hope to give you the ability to discern what is of use and what is not, even if what resonates for you differs from what I remember after years of trimming the experience in my memory.

I love you both.

Love,

Dad

Celebrating a joyful weekend, and other updates

February 12, 2024

Dear Leland and Everett,

We had a pretty wonderful weekend. On Saturday we celebrated the lunar new year, in part by partaking in the wonderful traditions of rec league basketball and attending a friend’s birthday party. Jokes aside, I really enjoyed watching your games and spending time with you before, during, and after your games. And fortunately, rec league games go quickly enough that we still had plenty of time remaining on Sunday to enjoy a festive lunch and dinner together. On Sunday we ran errands together before the Super Bowl; our original plan was to watch with friends, but our host contracted Covid, so we watched at home as a family. Overall, while we didn’t do anything particularly noteworthy, I just enjoyed being with you guys and your mom. It was a peaceful, joyful weekend.

Perhaps related: on Friday I decided to follow up on my Thursday meditation. In particular, I wanted to explore the anxiety I sensed I was radiating and the thin but incomplete layer of darkness I sensed covering my light. After settling into my meditation I identified the anxious energy rather effortlessly. After just a moment sitting with the energy I remembered that our anxious energy is really just how we experience resistance to positive emotion. Said differently, I’m starting to believe that anytime I feel a surge of energy, there is an underlying positive emotion (ultimately love, but often paired with some inspiration, experienced as a desire to do or say something). I reminded myself not to resist, and just allow the energy to be.

Around this point my attention shifted to my receptor. I haven’t meditated regarding my receptor in quite awhile, and I didn’t intentionally shift my attention there. But soon after I elected to allow my energy to flow without resistance, my attention shifted to the receptor and I felt a release of loving energy emanating outward. I felt a strange combination of peace and calm combined with energy flow. The energy reminded me of how I might feel when inspired to create something, or motivated to do something. In other words, not sensations I normally feel paired with peace and calm. I just sat with the variety of sensations as if practicing holding them simultaneously. This felt healing.

In fact, at this point I imagined my head lying in Jesus’ lap, as if Jesus were nursing me back to health. I looked at Jesus as if to say “okay, I’m ready to get up”, sensing this new energy would be sufficiently healing to provide inspiration and motivation while simultaneously healing whatever I have left to heal. Jesus didn’t speak, but looked at me as if to say “No child; continue to rest and heal. Go slow. Take it easy.”

With some reflection, I take two meanings from that experience. First, I am reminded to focus on being rather than doing. American society is very focused on what we do, and in particular what we accomplish. And so we feel constantly compelled to do, in an effort to accomplish the things that will bring us love, abundance, and joy. God reminds us that we are in fact called to just Be, and in the process of being experience God’s love, abundance, and joy.

Counterintuitively, Being does not mean existing in a state of sloth or even inactivity. Being means allowing love, inspiration, and energy to flow through us unimpeded. My suspicion is that those who experience Being are in fact quite active and productive, but perhaps not in ways that we commonly associate with achievement and status.

My second takeaway from the meditation reinforces a recently coalescing thought: the real purpose of life is to heal ourselves and to experience wholeness. Important to highlight here: healing ourselves is the path to healing others. At a very deep level, what we want is what God wants, and what is best for the world. Doing good becomes a natural extension of our Being, as we act from a place of healing and wholeness, and through our very presence we become an invitation to others to heal.

I actually think this is what Jesus meant when he said “No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). Jesus was speaking as the I AM, the state of total harmony with God. Jesus is intimating that we each possess the tools to achieve this state, and that the path to the Kingdom is through ourselves, via the path of healing, to discover the I AM: connection to God and all there is.

I also think this is what Jesus in the Gospel of Thomas means when he says “If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.” We heal by surrendering what is within us (e.g. the sources of resistance). Resisting the invitation to let go of our pain brings us into encounter with increasing levels of suffering.

And how does one heal? Well, we’ve talked about this once before, but I increasingly believe that the path to healing is through surrender. If I identify another relevant tool I will share, but so far my experience suggests that identifying resistance and then surrendering the resistance (with God’s help if needed) can solve pretty much all problems. Our suffering comes not from what is, but from our resistance and unwillingness to accept what is. When we can let go of the resistance, we can find peace. We still experience waves of energy and emotion, but let go of our attachments.

I’d be remise if I didn’t highlight a couple recent observations. I’m spending less time on my phone; I still use my phone a lot, but I no longer feel a compulsive need to look at my phone the minute I feel under-stimulated. I still find switching away from my phone and back into the real world to be somewhat challenging. Perhaps I’ll get better at switching, or perhaps I’ll continue to decrease my usage of my phone. I’m drinking less caffeine than I used to: for years my routine has been to drink 2 cups of coffee each day. In the last week I’ve skipped coffee at least 3 or 4 days. I didn’t skip the coffee out of any purposeful effort, but just a lack of interest. I felt awake and didn’t feel like I needed coffee to enhance my wakeful state. Finally, my relationship to food and alcohol are evolving. I historically binge ate and drank on weekends, I think in an effort to numb myself a bit from the stresses of the week (and metaphorically stuff those negative emotions back down). I still drink alcohol on occasion, but generally not beyond a drink or two. And even then, I’m aware that I am drinking in part because there is some emotion I don’t want to feel (and so I make the note to explore in my subsequent meditation). I still overeat, but rarely do I truly binge eat. Currently my overeating typically consists of eating a little too much at dinner time (by which point I’m not typically hungry, but want to eat dinner as a communal activity with the family). None of these changes have been intentional or purposeful, so I won’t set any goals or intention around them. Instead I observe the changes with appreciation and curiosity, and will continue to watch how I evolve.

I love you guys. Thanks for a great weekend.

Love,

Dad

Seeing with the eyes of Jesus

February 7, 2024

Dear Leland and Everett,

In my prayer group on Monday we were asked to engage in an interactive prayer with Jesus. We were given a number of potential topics to explore. One of the topics was to request to see yourself and others through the eyes of Jesus. I’d encountered the idea of seeing through the eyes of God or Jesus repeatedly recently, so decided to take this as my opportunity to do so. To set the stage, imagine Jesus standing in front of a congregation at a synagogue. I approach Jesus and ask to see through his eyes, and from his vantage point.

Looking through Jesus’ eyes at me, I saw nervous energy radiating out. A combination of fear and sadness created a veneer of anxiety projecting unintentionally. I recognize that energy: I see it in others, including your mom, regularly. I then realized that I observe the energy in your mom and others precisely because I recognize it in myself. As Jesus I looked at this anxiety with compassion, thinking “if you only knew the gifts and abundance available to you”.

I looked deeper and noticed a bright light emanating from within me. The light was mostly covered by a thin layer of darkness representing fear and sadness. I noticed that the light was ready to break through once I could release the remaining fear and sadness. The light looked rather bright, and the layer of darkness covering the light was cracked and thin, leaving significant parts of my light exposed. I sense the light has grown, and the fear and sadness have receded, rather dramatically over the last year (or two or three).

Still looking through Jesus eyes, I then scanned the congregation. I saw each person as an inner light covered by an outer layer of darkness or shadows. Some individuals were so closed off (so enveloped in fear and sadness) that Jesus could not see their light (or see it only very faintly). Others were mostly covered in a thick layer of shadows, but cracks allowed slivers of light to poke through. As Jesus, I felt an invitation to engage with the light exposed by the cracks. I didn’t sense Jesus felt any hostility toward those fully covered in shadows, revealing none of their internal light; but I did sense Jesus felt a lack of invitation, a lack of opening, an unwillingness to be exposed to and draw strength from Jesus’ light and love. My interpretation (formed later) is that Jesus/God want to engage with us all, but recognize they must be invited in. Jesus/God, ironically, enjoy engaging with us where we are broken precisely because our brokenness exposes our light, or love, our humanity. We need not lead with our brokenness: Jesus/God are perfectly happy engaging with any and all openings, anywhere we are willing to expose ourselves. Our brokenness (or perceived brokenness) just happens to be where we expose ourselves most commonly.

A couple years ago, in one of my first visions, I discovered that my light could be a source of healing for others. I was tempted to bring that light to everyone, even chasing the reluctant if necessary. A thought came to me: “no, you are to walk in your path; they will come to the light when they are ready”. I asked “what if some are never ready?”. The response, “that is not for you to know”. I very much did not like that response, but sensed that I needed to surrender.

On Sunday, I sensed a call to engage with someone. This time, my message was met with resistance. My sense, in retrospect, was that my counterparty wanted to understand my message intellectually, and resisted the possibility of surrendering to other ways of knowing. I sense she was at least a little stuck in righteousness, wanting to solve others’ problems instead of engaging with her own. I like and care for this individual, so spent some time later ruminating over how to break through. I eventually sensed that I am called to engage where I sense invitation. I planted a seed with this individual, and my hope is that the seed sprouts and pokes through her resistance. In the meantime, I am reminded to heed the message I conveyed to her: when I am tempted to solve the problems I see in others, what I am really encountering is an invitation to heal me. I trust that her journey is perfect, and that she will learn to let go of her resistance and righteousness at the right time and in the right way. In the meantime, I am reminded to walk in my path, sharing my light with those who are drawn to it, but allowing the uninterested and unready the peace and space to walk in their own path.

The coda to last night’s prayer: Jesus zoomed out and looked at the world. He saw a layer of scaffolding hovering above the world, representing the structures we have built to control each other via fear. I, personally, felt a stabbing pain in my chest as Jesus lamented the needlessness for the scaffolding: if only they knew the deeper love, truth, and way of being available to them in how they interact and engage with each other. I’m not entirely sure what this meant, though I anticipate it is a topic I will explore in coming weeks or months.

I love you both,

Dad

Experiencing a second wave of grief

February 5, 2024

Dear Leland and Everett,

They say grief comes in waves. I’ve heard that over and over. It’s one thing to understand something intellectually; experiencing the thing is something else completely.

Last week my grief dissipated faster than I anticipated or wanted. I felt beauty in the sadness, and wanted to hold onto that feeling of beauty. The sadness hit me hard last Tuesday; by Wednesday it had lost about half its resonance, and I appreciated the feeling of lightness and joy I felt in replacement as the week progressed, but longed for the sadness to return.

I needn’t have worried. The sadness returned over the weekend, much to my surprise. Our minds think linearly; as the sadness dissipated, I assumed it was receding permanently…even as I listened to podcasts where people talked about sadness coming in waves. Despite my longing for the sadness last week, I resented its return. I resented the surprise. Of course, I cannot control the return of sadness any more than I could control its dissipation. I assume the goal is to learn how to surrender into the waves and let go of the resentment and resistance; let’s just say I’m not there yet.

We watched The Lion King over the weekend, or at least part of it. The original came out when I was in high school, and immediately became one of my favorite movies. I listened to the soundtrack over and over and over again. In my youth, the story was about a boy whose destiny was frustrated by a bad guy, but who ultimately overcame his obstacles and ‘won’. Now I see a story about a boy who expected his life to play out in a certain way (“I Just Can’t Wait to be King”) before experiencing a traumatic event (the death of his father) and developing a coping strategy (running away from home and adopting a carefree lifestyle with friends) that served a valuable purpose at the time (it may well have kept him alive) before being pulled back to face and overcome his trauma and fulfill his destiny. That story resonates deeply with me now: though my destiny was never to be King, I do feel as if I am being pulled back onto ‘my path’, at times in spite of my resistance.

As an aside: my adolescent interpretation of the meaning behind The Lion King is no more or less accurate than my middle-aged interpretation. Art (and scripture too, for that matter) not only mean different things to different people, they mean different things to the same person at different stages in life. Intriguingly, even the artist loses control of the meaning of his or her art the moment it gets released out into the world; once public, the art takes on as many meanings as there are encounters with the art. The lesson for you: you can only embrace the resonance you feel, and learn what the resonance wants to reveal; but understand that others will find different learnings in their own resonance. Hold onto your meaning and learning, but allow others the grace to learn and discover what is meant for them.

Chaos theory is a scientific concept originally exposed to me by the book Jurassic Park a couple years before The Lion King. One idea that stuck with me was nonlinear dynamics: sometimes alluded to by shorthand as the Butterfly Effect, nonlinear dynamics posit that in certain complex systems, tiny changes in inputs yield vastly different outcomes. When modeling weather patterns, for example, scientists observed that tiny variations in wind materially impacts weather patterns surprisingly quickly. The wind could change as little as the displacement caused by a butterfly flapping its wings and still yield measurable results mere weeks later (thus the name The Butterly Effect).

What I only recently learned is that chaos theory also posits that the range of possible outcomes, though large and nonlinear, tend to double back on themselves in something of a figure-8 pattern, with the 8 represented in large bands created by the range of potential outcomes. Somehow this concept helps me reconcile the age-old Christian struggle between the ideas of free will and predestination. We Americans are well versed in free will, the idea that individuals are empowered to make choices and forge their own path. Some Christians believe in predestination, the idea that an all-powerful and all-knowing God must have already determined everything, including the ‘choices’ we as individuals will make. My personal sense is that we individuals are empowered with free choice, and that our choices will set us on different possible paths, but that those paths circle around central themes that serve as apparent gravitational forces in our lives. Expressed artistically, there were many paths for Simba’s life to take, but they all centered around the gravitational pull toward his becoming king. Expressed spiritually, I think this is why Buddhists (and to a lesser extent Christians) focus on surrender, correctly recognizing that our suffering comes from struggle, and our apparent insistence in resisting the path laid out for us. Surrender into our path does not in fact mean giving up our free will. Indeed, following our path is neither easy nor comfortable. I’m beginning to think of surrender like agreeing to play a video game we design for ourselves: the game is optimized for the maximum difficulty and struggle we can handle, while ensuring we have all the tools available for us to succeed (even if that means dropping the tools into the game just in time for us to utilize).

Later in the weekend, and again last night, we listened to Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car”, a gloriously sad song originally released a couple years before Jurassic Park, but re-recorded last year by Luke Combs. Chapman and Combs performed the song as a duet at the Grammy’s on Sunday night, which brought the song back into my awareness. Some of the haunting sadness in Chapman’s voice is now replaced with hints of joy and cheerfulness, the observation of which brought me some gratitude.

In my youth, “Fast Car” was a song about the exhilaration of youth and escape. Listening now, I notice for the first time that the song is also about the cycles of trauma, and how as adults we relive the trauma’s of our youth unless and until we really heal. Thus, the gravitational forces of ‘destiny’ apparently expressed in chaos theory revealed themselves again through art.

We listened to the song together last night. I wept. Everett in particular found this curious, intimating he hadn’t seen me cry before (or had observed it rarely, I forget the exact framing). Leland corrected Everett: Leland is old enough to remember seeing Dad cry. I was surprised by Everett’s surprise; I feel as if I cry in front of you both regularly. Indeed in my mental model I cry all the time; perhaps I judge myself against the generations of men who came before me, who rarely if ever expressed emotion through tears. Alas, I am different; I weep somewhat regularly. Until this recent wave of grief the most reliable way for me to experience uncontrollable weeping was to watch movie scenes where dads are separated from their children (especially their sons). The idea of losing the two of you is more than I can bear. Perhaps we haven’t watched such a movie recently enough for Everett to be old enough to remember seeing his dad cry.

Interestingly, neither of you seemed particularly bothered by my uncontrolled crying. You were curious, but not resistant. You didn’t judge, you didn’t criticize, you didn’t try to distract me, even with comfort. You just let me cry. You asked why, but you didn’t resist. Everett in particular I thought might try to distract or comfort me: you often dislike when others feel negative emotions. I wonder if my own lack of resistance, coupled with your mom’s openness, enabled you to allow space for me to cry. Whatever the reason, I’m oddly grateful we all shared that experience together. I’m glad you got to see me cry, and know that I don’t mind crying. On some level or some day I hope you can appreciate processing sadness was important to me at this stage in my journey. If you remember watching the song together with your dad and can tie that experience to these stories, so much the better.

And why was I crying? I still can’t articulate it exactly. The overarching story, I think, is still me learning to surrender, and letting go of my illusion of control over my path. Somehow, though the effort to control my path yielded mostly pain and frustration, I feel an odd sadness of letting that story go. I have an odd attachment, even to the pain and frustration. I still hold some fear that I won’t have the strength or courage to walk in my path, and plenty of sadness around letting go of my cherished false idols. I think that’s enough for today, but we’ll discuss more soon.

I love you,

Dad

Love as flow

February 1, 2024

Dear Leland and Everett,

Love exists in a state of flow. Love does not sit idly waiting for someone to notice and pick it up; love moves. When mystics say things like “in order to love oneself, love others”, they refer to love in flow. If we want to feel love, we can share it and invite the flow of love through our lives; as love flows through us to others (or God), we inherently feel replenished and healed by the love we share. For some, however, before we can share or receive love we must first create space by clearing our blockages of fear and sadness. Once we create the space, love naturally flows in and invites us to share. In this natural state of flow love grows, expanding to fit the space we create and inviting us to grow the space available.

The idea that love exists in a state of flow came to me a few months ago, during my meditations. It started due to some trivial frustration with your mom (I don’t recall why I was frustrated; when you are married you will find that you carry various minor grievances regularly). On this particular occasion, as I sat down to meditate, I actually noticed the frustration, which felt as if I were carrying some negative electrical charge. Rather than do what I normally do and justify my frustration, I got curious and decided to explore. As I settled into my meditation, I welcomed the charge and thanked it for protecting me. It took me awhile to genuinely feel a willingness to welcome and embrace the charge; I sat patiently until I felt the willingness. From that place I asked the charge if there was anything it wanted me to know. I felt a source of negative energy in my gut. I directed my awareness to where I felt the discomfort in my body, and again welcomed it. I observed that the energy felt closed, as if sitting inside a balled fist. I asked the charge if it were willing to let go and open up (with the caveat that we could put the fist back if needed). The fist opened and receded, exposing a bulb-shaped receptor. The receptor sat suspended in my gut from a long wire. From that part of my body, I suddenly felt very raw, open, and exposed. The fist served as a source of protection from vulnerability, from pain. With the fist gone, the receptor felt acutely (almost unbearably) sensitive. I asked the receptor what it wanted: to be loved. I assured the receptor that it was loved, by God and by me. It responded “I also want to be loved by others”. I assured the receptor it was okay to want to be loved by others.

After some time sitting raw, exposed, and uncomfortable, I started to feel love flow from some mysterious internal source out of the receptor. I sensed the receptor was receiving God’s love, and channeling it out into the world. My fist had protected the receptor from pain, but had also stopped the flow of love. I eventually settled into the realization that I was meant to sit with this receptor open and exposed, allowing love to flow. On a practical level this meant allowing myself to get vulnerable, sit in the unfamiliar discomfort of feeling exposed to pain, and eventually find strength in the vulnerability. As a result, I’ve been intentionally practicing exposing myself and getting vulnerable publicly, slowly building comfort in the discomfort, strength in the vulnerability. It’s painful but healing work.

More recently I realized that we humans, when we experience love, have a deep and innate desire to capture and hold onto that love. And so we try to build boxes meant to capture the love we experience, in the expectation that we can return to the box and access the love we want when we want it.

The problem: as mentioned above, love exists in a state of flow. The box may very well trap some finite quantity of love inside, but in blocking flow it prevents the replenishment of love. In our return to the box, we begin to draw upon a finite rather than infinite source of love. We don’t notice at first, because there is ample love remaining in the box on the first few visits, and so we feel safer in the presence of the box, knowing *we* have done something tangible to secure our access to love. Over time however, without the capacity for replenishment, the well of love in the box begins to run dry. We experience a crisis: we’ve grown dependent on the box for love, and have forgotten how to live in a state of flow. We delude ourselves into believing love is finite, and panic at the thought our sources might run dry. We’re cut off from the endless ocean of love available to us due to our inability (born of unfamiliarity) to live in flow.

Examples of boxes we create: holding onto relationships that no longer serve us, addiction in any form (chasing the ‘high’ we felt the first time), or stunting the growth of our children out of fear they will grow up and leave us. Basically, any time we clutch onto something that once brought us joy, we create a box that impedes the flow of love in our lives.

To some degree, our institutions are really just boxes we built in an effort to capture and preserve something good. Our media, education system, forms of government, corporate structures, and religions are all boxes designed to capture and protect various ideals. For generations (or centuries, or even millennia) we’ve relied upon these structures for security and protection, increasingly at the cost of allowing ourselves to exist in a state of vulnerability and flow. And so, over time, we have sourced our security and love from these finite sources, not realizing these sources were finite and not realizing the ultimate source of goodness is love, love exists in a state of flow, and the path to replenishing the love in our lives is surrender. In surrender we clear the blockages of fear and sadness, creating the space for love to flow; fortunately the flow returns once the space is cleared, love is infinite, and in flow love expands.

Our species is being invited to rediscover flow. As the boxes (e.g. institutions) we built run dry, we collectively feel the need to replenish the love in our lives. As of now we look, increasingly frantically, to those institutions on which we’ve come to rely. We have yet to understand those institutions were cut off from replenishment the moment they were created, that the very thing that made them feel safe (the reliability of the box) was the same thing which would lead to their ultimate doom (the separation from replenishment via flow), and that we need to return to our natural state of flow in order to feel love and wholeness again. This will be a jarring shift. Such is our invitation.

I love you,

Dad